PhD Student in Sociology at New York University

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Publications

Mishel, Emma and Paula England. 2018. “What is the sexual life cycle of those who ever have a same-sex partner?” Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds.

In this blog post for Contexts Magazine, we analyze the sexual life cycle of people who have ever had a same-sex partner.

Mishel, Emma and Mónica Caudillo. 2017. “Google Searches Show More Worry over Gay Men and Boys than over Gay Women and Girls.” Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds.

In this blog post for Contexts Magazine, we analyze Google Search trends and find that people ask Google “Is my son gay?” and “Is my husband gay?” much more than “Is my daughter gay/lesbian?” and “Is my wife gay/lesbian?”

We use data from the 2002–2013 National Surveys of Family Growth to examinechange across U.S. cohorts born between 1966 and 1995 in whether individuals have had sex with same-sex partners only, or with both men and women, and in whether they have a bisexual or gay identity. Adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, and mother’s education, we find increases across cohorts in the proportion of women who report a bisexual identity, who report ever having had sex with both sexes, or who report having had sex with women only. By contrast, we find no cohort trend for men; roughly 5 percent of men in every cohort have ever had sex with a man, and the proportion claiming a gay or bisexual attraction changed little. We speculate that this gender difference is rooted in a broader pattern of asymmetry in gender change in which departures from traditional gender norms are more acceptable for women than men.

Mishel, Emma. 2016. “Discrimination against Queer Women in the U.S. Workforce: A Résumé Audit Study.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 2: 1-13.

I report on the first study to use an audit method to ascertain whether discrimination occurs against queer women (relative to straight women) when they apply to jobs in the United States. A field experiment was conducted in which a pair of fictitious women’s résumés were sent to apply to more than 800 administrative jobs from online job databases advertised by employers across four states. One woman’s résumé was randomly assigned leadership experience at a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student organization to signal queer identity, while the other résumé, a control, was assigned experience at another progressive student organization. Results reveal that the women with the LGBT indicator on their résumés were discriminated against compared with the other women, receiving about 30 percent fewer callbacks.

*Winner, Best Graduate Student Paper, ASA Sexualities Section 2018*

Mishel, Emma. 2016. “Discrimination against Queer-perceived Women.” Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds.

I discuss the results of my audit study on discrimination against queer women in the U.S. workforce in this blog post for Contexts Magazine.